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Originally Posted by Richard B
The saddest part of the this is in the fact that Jim Henson thought he simply had a "cold" and didn't bother getting checked by a doctor. His lungs aspirated after going to bed for the night at home.
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I always thought it was flesh-eating disease. Necrotizing fasciitis, which is a rare bacterial disease. I remember this because the premier of my province at the time had also almost died of this. It is an infection that comes on incredibly fast - and is often fatal. (I also work in news, so I remember little details like this).
Okay - yeah - just did a quick search. Here's what I found:
http://www.jyi.org/features/ft.php?id=463
Flesh-eating disease… it sounds like the stuff of science fiction. It can spread through human tissue at a rate of 3 cm per hour. Twenty-five percent of its victims die, and in severe cases, the patient is dead within 18 hours. In 1990, it caused the death of Muppets creator, Jim Henson. It is small wonder that the media has given the disease such a dramatic, horrible-sounding name.
Unfortunately, this is not an excerpt from a science fiction novel, but rather a chapter from a bacteriology textbook. The medical name for this disease is necrotizing fasciitis (NF) and it is caused by a bacterium called Streptococcus pyogenes, or Group A streptococcus (GAS).
There's more on the site above.